My career has been a strange and eventful one, as you yourselves will
see if I can interest you sufficiently to listen to the end.
Of course, I was not always known as the Old Lady of
Threadneedle-street; indeed, I can well remember the feeling of
annoyance with which I saw _Mr. Punch's_ illustration of me in 1847, as
a fat old woman without a trace of beauty, except in my garments, which
were made of bank notes. I have kept a copy of it, and will just pencil
you the outline.
The annoyance was intensified when I found myself handed down to
posterity by him as the _Old_ Lady of Threadneedle-street. He could have
no authority for this picture, seeing that, like the Delphian mystery of
old, I am invisible, and deliver my oracles through my directors.
You are girls, and will quite understand the distress of being thrust
suddenly into old age. Up to 1847 I was young, good-looking, and
attractive, and to be bereft of my youth and romance at one blow; to
know that from henceforth all would be prosaic and business-like, that I
should never again have lovers seeking my favour, was a condition of
extreme pain. I had always prided myself on my figure, but even this
_Mr. Punch_ did not leave me, but told the world that it was due to
tight-lacing.
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